more maintenance...

[niall]

Shawn was over on holiday and came to visit for a few days to help out with a windmill service...very much appreciated  too.... 

rusty mags are a real problem now ...its got underneath some from last year but no damage to the stator ....

reassembly....   


not the best drop point .....i got lifted by the electric fence for the pigs at the start ...a big kick that was



after a neo clean up... epoxy seal , and extended air gap , the mill ran just fine ...but with the new low tolerance in the air gap and the critical neo situation we decided  to lower and play safe/mothball it as the owner is away for a while

a new vinyl ester rotor rebuild (not the worst scenario by any means ) and its good to go again .....

[shawn]

Hi Nial yes that electric fence kick hurt my stomach also cause I laughed so hard
When does the owner return im curios what he decides to do run or rebuild .
Ireland is a fantastic place for windmill lovers I spent three weeks looking at them NZ just dosn't have those numbers ohh well its only around 30 hours travel.
flew home and landed in some big winds they got much worse though 230 km not far from here and we had around 150 km my house sitter had my mill turned off so all good but trees down everyware  and no power (grid) for almost a week now.
times like these our off grid systems pay for themselfs others are running around with noisey gens trying to keep there frezers frozen.

[niall]

    ....must have been an interesting landing

no word from the owner yet Shawn, i dont think he,s back for another week or two , thanks for the pics ...i,ll pass some on to him so he,ll get a clear idea of what needs to be done ( the old rotor moulds are still available if needed)

the bad neos on the back rotor need replacing this time i,d say

i might remove this one to see what condition the polyester is in around it ...



more later then ....


   

 

[niall]

well i was talking to the owner yesterday Shawn , ...he,s going for a full rebuild of the rotors using vinyl ester this time ...

the smaller 2.4m machine (has a problem somewhere in the stator) will sacrifice some of its good neos  .....

the original molds however didnt turn up which will slow things down a bit .....rebuild should start next week ...... ish

[shawn]

good to hear hate to see such a good site not used ,
If you send me over a ticket Ill work all weekend for free and throw in the beer
Jokes aside its a shame im so far away I loved all those mills about around you even took a few pics of some wind damaged ones.

[niall]

well ....the pigs have gone Shawn ...but the site is a mudbath now ....

this is "that"  neo that caused us all the grief with the stator gap when you were here ....
the poly ester section around it was just about completely detached from the rotor....
 


no hope of a quick patch up job then , life no 9 has been used up , the poly (and every neo to some degree)  had rust underneath .....

 the vinyl ester is here , so its a full clean and rebuild....




the front rotor , although not near as bad was quicker to strip as we knew what was going to be underneath.....



some of the neos ( at least 6/7 will be binned ).....the smaller unused machine will donate them

the others are in reasonably good shape ,although the nickle coating is,nt there much anymore on the bottom .......

with the price of neos now , not trying to clean and reuse isnt really an option .....(get another year or 2 ?)...

the "cleaned" up neos

 

i think this alt always ran (liked) a big airgap ......a little bit of breathing space was good for it in the end ....(i,ll pick you up at the airport )

[niall]

slow progress ...but the rotors are recast , the back or reverse side of the rotors were used as the 2 pack paint had protected them well .....a bit too much pitting to clean up on the original side......

about 12 neos in total were replaced ....





things are moving slow though ....


 

[bj]

   Slow progress?  Possibly, but progress.
   Looking good though.  You have salvaged a lot.
   

[niall]

hi Bj ....

the weather now is holding up things outside as well , but the alt was reassembled inside in the warm ....dry runs are good ......the gremlins show up   



[ Specified attachment is not available ]

balancing jig ...you could spend hours at this ..and go partially insane ...



all the final prept bits .....

















   

[niall]

running again ....it,ll be interesting to see how it goes over the next while , but the alt has a nice comfortable air gap now ......
 

[bj]

Well done.   Well done indeed.

[Wolvenar]

Nice work

[niall]

 

i hope its ok for a while now.....the possible nipped phase cable in the yaw pipe bugged me a lot ...

fun , all be it in a kind of stressful way  ....

[shawn]

great to see it all working again that prop needed a little love it looks good now though also rememember the coroaded cable at the base of the tower !
still plenty of mud about i see

[niall]

yea ....we put another connector on that phase cable Shawn and encased it in silicon ...hopefully that,yl seal it better than the state when we seen it first ....

some high winds came through last weekend ....maybe up to 50/60 mph gusts , with bigger forecast next weekend.....

i,ll be back down friday evening for a check ( theres a winter solstice "do" that evening )....